'Littoral’ was the latest painting included in the artist's retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1981. The paintings of the later 1970s were the most freely executed of his whole career, and were painted flat on the studio floor. The titles were given after they were made and do not refer specifically to the subject.

In a conversation recorded at the Tate Gallery on 18 September 1981 the artist connected with this painting his childhood memories of watching the shadows of clouds moving across hills, and wrote on 29 September ‘“Littoral” is, I think, an expression of life, a joy in being alive’.